News

AJMAN / WAM Ajman Tourism Development Department (ATDD) and Umm Al Qaiwain Tourism and Archaeology Department have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support tourism research. The MoU aims to promote coordination and cooperation on tourism projects and initiatives in the interest of exchanging experiences and applying best practices. It also aims to promote cooperation in terms of joint ...

MOSCOW / WAM Dubai Customs has explored means to enhance cooperation with Saudi Arabia during a meeting between Director-General of the department Ahmed Mahboob Musabih and Abdul Hadi Mohammed Al-Shafi, the Saudi Consul-General in Dubai. The two discussed means of boosting cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Dubai especially in bilateral trade and customs business. “It’s very important for us to ...

ABU DHABI / Emirates Business ADCorp Ltd, the ADGM-based Islamic financial institution, has announced a new partnership with Sands Capital Management LLC, a leading independent investment manager based in the US. The partnership will see the two institutions working together to offer Shariah-compliant portfolios and funds, with Sands Capital acting as an advisor on exclusive products for ADCorp’s clients. The ...

ABU DHABI / WAM HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Federal Tax Authority (FTA), has issued FTA Decision No. (1) of 2019, setting a daily maximum of AED7,000 for cash refunds of value added tax (VAT) for tourists applying through the tax refunds for tourists scheme. In ...

Bloomberg Indonesia said it will crack down on trash imported from the world’s richest countries after closer inspections showed it’s increasingly the recipient of toxic waste materials. Authorities at ports have boosted checks after a random inspection in May led to the discovery of more than 80 containers containing illegal waste from the US, Australia and Europe. One of Australia’s ...

Bloomberg India is contemplating organising an annual global investors’ meet in the country, akin to the World Economic Forum in the alpine resort of Davos, to carve out a bigger global role for itself. The move will help create a niche for Asia’s third-biggest economy within the international financial system, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech. China ...

Bloomberg Grameenphone, the Bangladesh division of Norway’s Telenor Group, said the local telecom regulator’s move to restrict internet bandwidth for its services was “illegal”, as the company continues to pursue arbitration over an audit demand of nearly $1.5 billion. Bangladesh’s largest mobile company said at a press conference the regulator’s move to restrict internet access was “specially designed to put ...

Bloomberg India, the world’s biggest consumer of gold after China, increased the import tax on the precious metal for the first time since 2013, spurring domestic prices to a record. Shares of jewellers slumped. The import tax on gold and other precious metals will be raised to 12.5 percent from 10 percent, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while presenting the ...

Bloomberg Thailand’s struggling tourism industry is finding support with visitors from the population colossus to its west, just as the years of bumper arrivals from the giant to its north are beginning to wane. At a beachfront hotel on the tropical island of Phuket, the occupancy rate from Chinese clientele has stalled, while bookings from India have begun to rise. ...

Bloomberg Trade tensions and uncertainty surrounding Brexit are raising economic risks for the euro area, prompting France to urge Germany to loosen its purse strings to support growth. “It would be irresponsible not to examine the need for new investments in the euro zone,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said at an annual economic conference in Aix-en-Provence, in southern ...